“The French papers give a curious account of one James de Falaise, a Norman, about fifty years of age, living in the Rue St. Honoré. It is said that this extraordinary man will swallow whole walnuts, shell and all, a tobacco pipe, three cards rolled together, a rose with all its leaves, long stalk, and thorns, a living bird, and a living mouse, and, lastly, a live eel. Like to the Indian jugglers, he swallows the blade of a sabre about thirteen inches long of polished steel. This operation he performs very slowly, and with some precaution; though he evinces no symptom of pain. After every solid body that he swallows, he always takes a small dose of wine expressly prepared for him. He does not seem to make any effort to kill the living animals that he takes in his mouth, but boasts that he feels them moving in his stomach.”
In my collection is the handbill of a stone-swallower who exhibited at No. 10 Cockspur Street, London, charging an admission fee of half-a-crown.
These performers actually swallowed the water, stones, pebbles, etc., and retched them up again so cleverly and at such carefully selected instants that the audience did not know that the disgorging had been accomplished.
Swallowing glass was a different matter, and the modern human ostriches have all wound up at city hospitals where surgeons have removed broken glass, knife blades, and other foreign matter by means of an operation.